clucking sound when restarting IMAC, Trouble shooting Adobe Illustrator

1) Please identify the size and exact year model of your iMac.

see > Identify your iMac model - Apple Support

2) That startup sounds means that you have bad, incompatible or poorly seated RAM modules.

see > If your Mac beeps during startup - Apple Support

and > Install memory in an iMac - Apple Support

3) Mac's are picky and you should only purchase compatible RAM modules from vendors that support Mac's.

see > https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/iMac

and > https://www.crucial.com/upgrades/apple

1—Your drive speeds are 1/2 of nominals, likely suffering from CleanMyMac:

Performance:

System Load: 1.33 (1 min ago) 1.41 (5 min ago) 1.42 (15 min ago)

Nominal I/O usage: 0.05 MB/s

File system: 18.21 seconds

Write speed: 1061 MB/s ⚠️

Read speed: 2873 MB/s

For that drive model, your Write speeds should be over 2000MB/sec. Example from my 2017 iMac 5K with Apple's factory SSD:

Performance:

    System Load: 1.66 (1 min ago) 1.42 (5 min ago) 1.31 (15 min ago)

    Nominal I/O speed: 0.23 MB/s

    File system: 20.35 seconds

    Write speed:  2156 MB/s 👈🏻

    Read speed:  2863 MB/s

I have seen plenty of EtreCheck reports where removing CleanMyMac has improved drive Write scores significantly. So you may have paid money to have to your expensive SSD's performance plummet.

Since the year 2000, the macOS has included elegant, automated self-maintenance routines that manage ALL needed cleaning and optimizing without any outsde help. The industry knows this so, to me, any third-party app that claims a Mac needs help with cleaning and and maintenance is a word the forum's profanity filter would remove!😳

Worse, useless scamware interferes the that elegance you paid Apple to build into the OS, causing instability and slowdowns. I been here a painfully long time and had never seen a reprot of a clening app make a Mac run better.

And you probably didn't need the expense of having 48GB RAM installed if CMM is casuing your your slowness.

2—Likewise, evict AntiVirus One.

3—Your SSD is rather small for the load it caries. Make sure it get not fuller tht in tiis now,. Your free space ia ant minmumum.

4—Ancient Plug-ins:

Internet Plug-ins:

Silverlight: 5.1.50901.0 (? - installed 2019-10-05)

Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: 2.4.0.11 (? - installed 2011-11-06)

AdobePDFViewer: 9.0.0 (? - installed 2011-01-30)

iPhotoPhotocast: 7.0 (Apple - installed 2012-03-31)

AdobeAAMDetect: 3.0.0.0 (Adobe Inc. - installed 2024-06-26)

EPPEX Plugin: 3.0.5.0 (? - installed 2009-07-29)

Note that FOUR of these are older that your computer. That means you don't need them. If you do need them, update them, And Silverlight was dead and buried by 2021

5—Can't tell from the report if you have a Time Machine backup set up. If not, you need it for when the small SSD fills up or third-party fearware trashes your drive.

First, please NEVER EVER take your Mac to a PC guy. Always take it to an Apple Authorized Service Provider to be serviced. Upgrading RAM is pretty harmless however the guy may have done you no favors by adding poor quality RAM. If you are unfamiliar with where there are AASP's in your area please use the information in the link below to begin finding them:

Apple Authorized Service Provider Locator (AASP) & Genius Appointment

As for Illustrator, as you know that is an Adobe app so I would recommend contacting Adobe for support or contacting an Illustrator forum forum for other users. Finally when posting there, let them know specifics such as:

• Model year of your Mac including the RAM and storage space
• Version of Illustrator that is currently installed on the computer.

Those offering their help will need that information, without basic information they are in the dark so you are limiting their ability to assist.

CleanMyMac and Antivirus One are bad news. Uninstall both as per the developers directions.

KensingtonWorksHelper whatever that is, is crashing and also needs to go.

Your have a ton of third-party App's set to startup at login. Go thru your User Login Items and remove anything that is not necessary or that you can manually open and then quit when not needed.

You have no Time Machine or other backup to fall back on, when or if something more serious goes wrong.

see > Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support

That RAM and Installation looks OK to me.

Then only thing that might cause a problem is if one of the modules is not firmly seated in the slot.

To check the rest of your setup,

Download and run the free version of EtreCheckPro, from > https://etrecheck.com/en/index.html

Then post the Report, as per > How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community

Go to Apple > About This Mac > System Report > select Memory in the Hardware section.

Take a screenshot of the Memory slots panel.

see > Take a screenshot on your Mac - Apple Support

Then post the screenshot using the Image Insertion tool.

Thanks, I can't spot anything for certain.

How about the Drive DX report?

To find out if it's system wide or user specific, try this...

Open System Preferences>Users & Groups, unlock the lock, click on the little plus icon, make a new admin account, log out & into the new account.

Does it work in the new account?

Sorry forgot to mention...

Give etrecheck Full Disk Access before running.

Also...

You can use Drive DX to possibly get a better view of Drive health…

https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx

Open Activity Monitor, Show:>All Processes, sort on CPU%, see if anything using too much CPU% when this happens.

CleanMyMac is considered malware by experienced users. IF you don't mind an unstable, buggy system then continue to use it, however if you want a stable, secure and fast system locate the developers uninstall instructions and follow them. Then download the free (evaluation) version of FindAnyFile and have it search for:

• CleanMyMac
• MacPaw

and have it Trash anything it finds and then ensure your Trash is empty.

By the way, CMM does NOTHING that Mac OS doesn't already have the ability to do on its own.

Finally, a great External Hard Disk for backup is the OWC Mercury Elite Pro.

CMM - Clean My Mac...

Uninstall CleanMyMac per their directions , then run etrecheck again to see what chaff it left...

On CMM…

iMac scrolling impossible with Monterey - Apple Community

mystery startup items - Apple Community

iMac running slow, several apps unrespons… - Apple Community

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251442443?answerId=252814053022#252814053022

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251464557?answerId=252841819022#252841819022

Unable to make any changes to contacts on… - Apple Community

macOS Catalina iMac (Retina 5k) 3.4 Ghz q… - Apple Community

SSD = Solid State Drive.

Sort on CPU% by clicking on the CPU tab then the cpu% header, what are the highest values & name?

puggybomac wrote:

TY SO VERY MUCH FOR ALL HELP!

You're welcome.

So the sound is probably due to a loose RAM module???

Is it a chime, clucking or clunking sound...?

In your original opening question, you said it was clucking...

Then in the EtreCheckPro report, you said it was clunking...

What's a good back up disk?

The OWC mercury Pro external drive that rkaufmann87 suggested, is one of the best.

What's wrong with cleanmymac? how do I telll the good apps from the bad? is there a list?

It will cause your system to be buggy or unstable and in some cases completely unusable.